Birds on the Move

September and October are the months that see the greatest variety of birds on the move through our region, including a smattering of vagrants — birds that are hundreds or thousands of miles from where they should be. To date, it’s been a quiet migration season with smaller than expected numbers of western migrants. Vagrant birds have also been in short supply, with the exception of the wonderful Louisiana waterthrush that skulkingly graced Atascadero Creek in Goleta last month. This two-day wonder, only the second ever seen in the county, attracted many birders from near and far, and some were lucky enough to actually clap eyes on the bird.

Another unfolding trend is that some species are in the midst of an irruption. Irruptions are when northern montane species spread south in search of food, often because of food failures within their normal range. The most apparent species involved in this invasion this year, and the one that usually is on the move the earliest, is the red-breasted nuthatch, which, in recent weeks, seem to be just about everywhere in the lowlands.

The first sign that you have red-breasted nuthatches in your neighborhood is hearing their distinctive call — a repetitive nasal note that sounds a bit like the tooting of a child’s tin horn. Like all nuthatches, the red-breasted forages mostly on trunks and the larger limbs of trees. Nuthatches are one of the few birds that are as comfortable traveling headfirst down a trunk as much as they are climbing upward. They are a bird of coniferous forests, but in irruption years, they will utilize just about any kind of tree. Last week on Santa Cruz Island, a number of birds were in a eucalyptus grove, searching for bugs under the papery bark.

Red-breasted nuthatches are real lookers. They are blue-gray above and rusty below. The crown and the eye stripe are black, and bisecting these stripes is a broad white eyebrow. The bill is long, sharp, and slightly upturned. They are compact little birds, having a barrel chest, a very short tail, and almost no neck. It will be interesting to see if other montane birds join the nuthatch in the lowlands. There have already been sightings of pine siskins, possibly the advance guard of what is to come. Clark’s nutcrackers are also on the move, with some already seen on our local peaks.

Another group of birds that have moved in, perhaps to stay, are the boobies, a group of large oceanic birds that catch fish by arrowing into the water from high above. I well remember my first booby sighting in Santa Barbara, a brown booby that roosted off the coast at Ellwood. Fifteen years ago, any booby sighting was a cause for celebration, but now they have become somewhat routine in our offshore waters. A few years ago, brown boobies began nesting on Sutil Island, an islet off tiny Santa Barbara Island. If you are lucky enough to make it out to remote Sutil, you can see more than a hundred boobies roosting on the cliffs or soaring high above the island. Recently, a pair of blue-footed boobies nested on Sutil, apparently the first time this has occurred in the United States.

Besides the brown and blue-footed, three other species of booby are now seen with some regularity. They are the masked, Nazca, and red-footed. Within the last weeks, a red-footed booby landed on the bow of a boat off Santa Cruz Island. When the boat began to head back to the mainland, the crew tried to shoo the bird off the boat, but to no avail. Boobies are so named because early Spanish mariners were easily able to capture and dine on the unwary birds; bobo in Spanish means “stupid” or “foolish.” This particular booby had more considerate hosts and hitched a ride all the way into Santa Barbara Harbor, where it spent the night. A few birders were up early enough to see the bird the following morning, but it soon took off and flew back out to sea.

Why are we seeing this sudden explosion in booby numbers? The theory that holds most weight is that the warming of the ocean is allowing these normally tropical species to move north. With a strong El Niño in the works, it seems likely booby sightings could increase even more.

Are you looking for a gift for the nature lover in your life? I’ve created a Santa Barbara Bird Calendar with some of my photos, and it’s available at Chaucer’s Books. All proceeds benefit the Santa Barbara Audubon Society.

Hugh Ranson is a member of Santa Barbara Audubon Society, a nonprofit organization that protects area birdlife and habitat and connects people with birds through education, conservation, and science. For more information, see santabarbaraaudubon.org.